


Ignorance, Yet Knowledge

by ainoimsed



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-03-21 21:26:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13749549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ainoimsed/pseuds/ainoimsed
Summary: What you did. What he asked you to do. It was wrong.Post-Order 66; Cody fights his brothers, his Empire, and himself for a chance at an apology.





	1. Ramikadyc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a firm decision with myself that Cody deserved something better, so here's my take. This short thing is set mainly after Order 66, and explores the possibility of some sort of redemption (sorta?) for the good Commander.
> 
> I will be taking a few mild liberties with regard to continuity and how stuff generally works in the Star Wars universe. It's more or less the same order of events, except sped up a bit! I'll try to keep notes as I go, and make things clear for everyone. Enjoy!
> 
> Note: changed the summary a bit to better reflect the over-arching plan for the story. Yay!

“Yes, my lord.” So easy, it had seemed, to follow orders. Just as he always had. And yet—

Cody watched those rocks tumble in a deadly arc over Kenobi’s path, blasted to instability by the very tank they’d both been standing in front of only moments before. At his order, the Jedi Master had been attacked by his own troopers, and his Commander watched as he plummeted to his doom.

Nearly immediately, something stirred in his mind. _This isn’t right,_ he thought; the turning gears were sluggish, but insistent. _Something isn’t right here._ He blinked once, twice, and stepped over to the chasm to see for himself. His battlefield mentality took the reins as he assessed the damage, and building blocks of his training fell into place as tactical thoughts. If he knew General Kenobi—

 _He_ knew _General Kenobi._

—there was no guarantee that he had been thwarted by a simple falling rock. Prowlers were sent down to the catacombs to find Kenobi, and finish the job. He snapped back to the last task he had been assigned before the Chancellor—

 _The Chancellor. The_ Chancellor.

—had appeared on holo to give his order. He commanded his troops against the droid army, and hunted the Separatist council hiding out on the far side of Pau City. They slipped through his fingers, fleeing to hyperspace just before he could load his men into their ships and pursue. As Greivous’ starfighter blinked out of the sky, a wave of relief washed over him like the lapping tide, and as it left, he felt the undercurrent of dread pulling at his heels.

They’d… won.

 

Time pressed on. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months. In the short span of a standard year, Cody had been given command of a guard unit on Coruscant. On his long patrols within and around the Senate building, his mind would wander—”so unlike you,” the Emperor had said once—and intrusive thoughts would prick behind his eyes like pins and needles.

 _Wrong._

A hard blink in an effort to banish the whispers from a voice he almost didn’t recognize as his own.

_What you did. What he asked you to do. It was wrong._

Those thoughts were harder to curb as he slept. They bubbled up from a mire that lay deep and heavy in his mind, clawing their way out as if desperate and drowning. Hushed, pained, pleading.

__

_General Kenobi. He trusted you._

They came for him on the worst days, after the hard drills and tough calls.

_What have you done?_

They came fuzzy, from somewhere far away, shrill and shrieking against a howling wind.

 _What have I done?_

Time pressed on. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months. In a few years’ time Cody and his battalion were moved to Kamino, to oversee the guard of the cloning facility at Timira City. He watched clones and sign-ups alike come and go, drilled them hard, and drilled himself harder. On his long patrols within and around the city’s perimeter, gnawing whispers would nip at his ears, full of static like a frequency he couldn’t pin down.

_...What have I done?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the Mando'a dictionary at mandoa.org:
> 
> Ramikadyc - commando state of mind--an attitude that one can do anything, endure anything, and achieve the objective. A blend of complete confidence and extreme tenacity instilled in special forces during training. Can also be used informally to describe a determined, focused person.
> 
> Everyone has a little voice of reason. Unfortunately, Cody's is blotted out by a control chip in his brain. This doesn't read as very shippy (and likely won't through the duration of the story), but I definitely intend it as such! Perhaps a little one-sided, but there nonetheless.


	2. Aay'han

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! Long time no read! Thanks so much for being patient. I hope you enjoy!

As they touched down on Kamino, Rex glanced to his left, and took solace in the fact that Wolffe looked just as tense as he felt. The shuttle whirred to a stop, the landing gear clicked into place, and a long, uncomfortable silence settled in the cockpit. After several minutes of watching a gentle rain soak their viewport, Rex huffed out a breath. “Gotta be honest with you, Wolffe—I’m not thrilled about what we might find in there.”

“Not thrilled about our _chances_ , myself,” Wolffe responded, his voice rough with anxiety. “Fall into ranks, right? That’s the plan?”

“The only plan we’ve got.”

“Any idea where he is?”

“Not a one.”

“I’m feeling better about this by the minute.”

Rex allowed himself a small smile, and kept his eyes trained on the viewport. “If I know Cody, he won’t be hard to spot. First thing’s first: if he’s got comm antennas, those have to go.”

“And that Dc-15x,” came Wolffe’s reply—casual, normal. Chatter about an old friend. “I’m willing to bet he’s still got the same damn blaster.”

“I’d be disappointed if he didn’t.”

Another pause followed. Wolffe crossed his arms, his restlessness manifesting in the form of tapping fingers. “…He’s always been better at hand-to-hand.”

“So stay sharp.”

“It ain’t always that easy, Rex.”

“I know.” With a stretch and a roll of his shoulder, Rex heaved a sigh. “Ready?”

“Nowhere near. But we have to bring him back.”

 

It took everything Rex had in him to bring Cody down. If they hadn’t been able to surprise him while wearing stolen trooper armor, he wasn’t sure they would have been able to take him down at all. Wolffe had snuck up behind him, and yanked the blaster—a different one after all—from his hands. The second he turned around, Rex came at him, fists swinging. Cody had demanded they identify themselves in between blows, had given Wolffe a hard crack against the jaw, and Rex his fair share of quick and efficient punches and kicks to his middle. In a stroke of luck, Rex had managed to throw Cody off balance; from there Wolffe had managed a well-placed kick to the center of Cody’s chest, putting him right in Rex’s arms for a choke hold. By the time he was out Wolffe had him cuffed, and they carried him back to the shuttle, swift and silent.

They arrived on Takodana in a matter of days, pushing their hastily repaired courier to its limit as they kept Cody carefully, deliberately unconscious for a large part of the trip. He’d woken twice, shouting tight-lipped curses and demanding answers— _I don’t know if this is going to work, Rex, I don’t know if he’ll be the same_ —before being given another dose of sedative. After their descent and successful landing, Rex and Wolffe gathered their brother in their arms, and made their way to Kanata’s castle.

 

“Where am I?” The calm question pierced the silence of the makeshift operating room at a whisper, Cody’s voice cracked and dry.

“Takodana,” Wolffe answered, standing beside the table Cody was lain upon with his arms crossed.

“Kamino,” Cody rasped, bleary-eyed and blinking against the light above him. “I was on Kamino. You took me from Kamino.”

“Yes. We did.”

“What are you going to do to me?” Cody asked them, glancing to his left to find Rex, and a Kel Dor who had been preparing a syringe in her three-fingered hands. She poked the needle into the top of a vial, and extracted the liquid within.

“Long story,” Rex shrugged with a smile, idle amusement in his tone. “We’ll tell you later.”

“You’ll tell me now,” Cody demanded, and slammed a hand down on the table to give himself leverage to sit up. Before he could get all the way up Wolffe had a hand on his chest, firm and almost challenging. Cody turned his eyes on Wolffe, and stared back at him without a hint of apprehension.

Rex heaved a sigh. “The chip. The inhibitor chip they put in us—we’re taking yours out.”

A sudden uneasiness bubbled at the edges of Cody’s consciousness, a dizzying déjà vu that made his stomach turn. “…In my head.”

Rex nodded. “In all of our heads. They tried to pass it off as some kind of safeguard, but Fives knew better. We knew better.”

“We took ours out before the Order,” Wolffe added, and kept his hand on Cody’s chest. “It’s too late to take the same back for you, but—”

“No,” Cody huffed out quietly as sweat formed at his brow. His thoughts churned a mile a minute, a sickening mix of desperation and revulsion and anger, too little and too much all at once. He shook his head, and strained against Wolffe’s hand to sit up fully. “…I can’t.”

“It’ll be alright,” Rex insisted, his voice calm and his hand firm on Cody’s forearm. “Trust me, vod. Just lie back, and—”

“Don’t call me that!” Cody yanked his arm back from Rex’s touch as if he’d been burned, his face contorted in confusion. His eyes seemed to vibrate in his skull, his vision suddenly blurred and his arms shaking at his sides. He barked at the clones beside him as if giving orders, as if to solidify his own thoughts. “You ignored your command! You betrayed the Republic!”

Wolffe used every bit of strength he had to push Cody back down against the table, while Rex stood to hold Cody’s wrists tightly in his hands, and looked down at him with a scowl. “We didn’t betray _anyone._ ”

Cody swallowed hard over his dry throat, and curled his fingers into tight fists as he screwed his eyes shut. “The Empire—”

“Your _Empire_ did this to you, Cody,” Wolffe hissed, his eyes narrowed. “It made you. Used you like a tool. We’re taking you back, whether you like it or not.”

Before Cody could open his mouth to answer, he felt the familiar tingle of a shot in his left arm. He turned to Rex, his voice hoarse and unconvinced. “I followed my orders.”

Rex stood still for a long moment, letting the comment hang in the air for what seemed like ages. As Cody’s eyelids grew heavy and tried to fight against the sedative, Rex allowed his stony expression to change to one of grief. “I know.”

 

At first, little felt different.

Cody awoke to the sounds of chatter and distant music, and sat up to survey his surroundings. He lifted a hand to the side of his head—a little spot buzzed from his hair, just above his temple on the left side—and glanced to his right. Rex sat in a chair nearby, and was idly flicking through a stream on a datapad before Cody caught his eye. He looked up, setting the datapad aside without hesitation, while Cody watched him.

“How do you feel?” Rex asked as he stood. His voice was low, oddly gentle.

“Rex,” Cody responded, delayed and distant, as if he only realized then who it was he was seeing.

Rex nodded. “Yeah.”

“Tired,” came Cody’s answer; his head sagged slightly, his focus sliding from Rex’s face to his own lap. “Real tired.”

“I bet. Been rough few days.” Rex stepped up to the table to offer Cody a hand. “Ready to go?”

Cody took Rex’s hand and slipped off the table, using his weight to keep him steady. After he was certain he’d stay standing, he let go. “What happens now?”

“Now we go home.”

 

Little was said between the three of them as they soared through the void, stars and planets alike racing by in bright streaks of light. Wolffe busied himself with minor repairs on a piece of radio equipment, and Rex spent a large amount of the time reading. Cody allowed himself, for the first time in a long time, to appreciate the beauty of space.

Thoughts he couldn’t place swam in the back of his mind, just out of reach. He closed his eyes against the light of hyperspace and took long, even breaths, allowed his focus to shift from where he was, to where he had been. The memories he reached at were foggy, oil-slick and all but impossible to grasp.

Days later they arrived safe and sound on Seelos, and Wolffe and Rex had led Cody to their home. They set him up in the top hatch of their AT-TE, and for many days after, that is where he stayed. As weeks passed, Cody found himself outside of his tiny quarters more and more. He learned to trust Rex and Wolffe again, and they learned to trust him, in turn.

He settled, slowly, into the blinding salt plains. A far cry from his cushy accomodations on Kamino and Coruscant, but somehow, it felt like the right place to be. Time rolled ever forward, and here and there, things would surface—people he could barely remember would spring to his mind, clear as daylight. Names he couldn’t hear over the hissing static rolled off his tongue like he’d spoken them yesterday. It was dizzying, and exhilirating, and _present_ all over again.

With time, those things settled, too.

 

“Yeah, I remember. That was right before they shipped off to Utapau.” The word slipped from Rex’s mouth with ease, and hung in the air before slamming into Cody’s subconscious at full force. It repeated itself in his head, louder and louder by the second.

_Utapau._

“Cody?” Wolffe addressed him curiously. “You alright, vod?”

“Utapau,” Cody echoed, bringing a hand up to rest his palm flat against his forehead. A rapidly growing headache was pinpointed there, his eyes throbbing in their sockets.

_He trusted you._

“Cody,” Rex called to him, a quiet urgency in his voice.

_What have you done? What have you **done?**_

A cacophany of voices he recognized as his own shrieked all at once, gasping for breath against a waning tide.

_Wrong. It was wrong. He **trusted** you._

“Cody.” Rex had moved to sit next to him, laid a hand on his arm in an attempt to ground him. “Cody, talk to me.”

“I killed him,” Cody whispered in horror. “General Kenobi. I killed him.”

Before either Rex or Wolffe could say anything more, Cody dissolved into tears. His brothers held him as long-forgotten memories bubbled to the forefront, as years of hidden grief tore him apart. He remembered watching as the hillside exploded at his own command. He remembered the smell of the General’s favorite tea. He remembered the sound of his voice, and the cool weight of his lightsaber hilt.

He wept into his brothers’ shoulders as his own trembled with heavy sobs, and grasped at every shard of the General that he could, aching and desperate to grieve him.

“What have I done?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the Mando'a dictionary at mandoa.org:
> 
> Aay'han: - bittersweet perfect moment of mourning and joy; remembering and celebrating.
> 
> Poor Cody finally gets rid of the fuzzy-brain...
> 
> Edit: Fixed a spelling mistake, and italicized a word I accidentally left out! :D


End file.
